A Review of The Da Vinci Code
by Eric W. Vogt, Associate Professor of Spanish

No question about it, no matter what one’s religious orientation, and almost
without regard to one’s taste in literature, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci
Code is a page turner. This adeptly woven yarn, like his previous one, Angels & Demons,
was ideally composed for commuters who open and close their books often. More
about that later.

More importantly, The Da Vinci Code , unlike Angels & Demons, is a tale many
Christians find disturbing. In Angels & Demons, the Roman Catholic Church
is in danger of physical destruction for a few hundred pages, but is saved at
the end, restoring to readers their cherished worldview. However, many have expressed
concern, some even outrage, about the effect The Da Vinci Code may have on youth
or on those of any age whose faith is immature. Some worry that it might damage
the faith, even the future of the church by stunting or strangling the growth
of the seed of faith.

In light of the real concerns people feel, it was fitting that
the editors of Response posed these questions in asking me to
review this book: Is there real danger that readers of The Da
Vinci Code will take it for truth or is it a harmless piece of
fiction? Is it something in between? Quite frankly, any book
is open to the charge that it is in some way dangerous to some
readers. So there is danger, but for those who only read less
critically, and who therefore may be disposed to accept the crescendo
of claims the novel makes regarding Jesus and primitive Christianity.
What most disturbs those who are bothered by this work of fiction
are the assertions about Jesus’ relationship with Mary Magdalen. Let us
examine this novel’s source material, content and form in the broadest
terms.

Whatever one thinks about Brown’s craftsmanship, he clearly succeeds in
creating suspense (we shall examine how he does this when we consider the book
as literature). Readers tend to be sympathetic with characters and trusting of
narrators and suspend their disbelief in the expectation that they will be entertained
and possibly informed as well. To draw on an analogy with another fictional work
that has remained a classic among believers and non-religious social activists,
readers must be willing to accept that “Jacob Marley was dead” or
A Christmas Carol will have no meaning. Unlike Brown, Dickens made no claims
to possessing facts about the afterlife. However, Brown, before beginning his
tale, and after acknowledging his numerous archival sources (as if their contents
were fountains that gushed forth only truth), makes misleading assertions on
a page entitled “Fact.” Since he places these “facts” outside
the tale, he (as Brown, and not as narrator), is intellectually accountable for
them. As such, they deserve more scrutiny and concern than any other aspect of
the declaredly fictional part.

Into the warp and woof of his plot, Brown deftly inserts a crescendo
of “facts” about
the history of the primitive church and other aspects of Western myths and little-known
histories of real, and bogus, esoteric movements. These “facts,” dropped
into dialogue or into narrative interstices, allow the narrator and the characters
to editorialize the plot from within as it develops. Since these tidbits are
injected in the midst of the predominant emotional interest in plot as explanations
of the action, they are almost inconspicuous and are thus less likely to be questioned.
The matter-of-fact assumptions woven into pseudoacademic arguments by Brown’s
omniscient, editorializing narrator, the fallacious art criticism and sudden
revelations Langdon gently confides to the incredulous, but easily convinced
Sophie, provide repeated opportunities in which less seasoned readers may confuse
reality with fiction. In the process of reading, the literary sleights of hand
muddle the boundaries between fiction and the received historical and religious
realities many cherish, causing anguish for some and possibly a crisis of faith
in a few.

On the cover, The Da Vinci Code is called a novel, but what shall
readers make of Brown’s list of “facts” and his lengthy acknowledgements
that precede it and thus set a tone of academic plausibility? At the beginning
of chapter 60, Teabing reveals the source material for The Da Vinci Code. One
of the books on his table is Holy Blood, Holy Grail. This book relies on a huge
hoax, well-known to students of esoterica: the Priory of Sion. Some critics have
exaggerated in accusing Brown of plagiarizing this work, but it was clear that
this work was his most immediate source of “facts.”

The biggest half-truth on the “fact” page is the claim that the Priory
of Sion exists. There was a Priory of Sion order, but it was absorbed into the
Jesuits in 1617. It exists no longer, and when it did, it was an order of the
Roman Catholic Church. Brown joins many conspiracy theorists who conveniently
ignore that their worldview depends on stringing together myriad hoaxes. The “Priory” that
Brown is concerned with is not of ancient origin, but was the invention of one
Pierre Plantard, a French charlatan who had been sympathetic to Adolf Hitler’s
Vichy government. The story is a convoluted one, as are most in esoteric studies,
but in brief, the most reliable story seems to be as follows: In 1956, Plantard
and others he had been involved with since the 1930s, organized his Priory of
Sion. Plantard et al forged documents, Les Dossier Secrets, in which claims were
made about, among other things, the antiquity of their invented Priory. These
forgeries consisted of faked genealogies and lists of supposed “Grand Masters” of
the Priory. A real crackpot, among his claims, Plantard named himself pretender
to the Merovingian line of kings. He planted these forgeries in the Bibliotéque
Nationale in the 1960s to support the myth of his Priory. In the 1980s, French
journalist Jean-Luc Chaumeil exposed the hoax. One tactic of the far right is
to lay claim to time-honored names associated with the same esoteric movements
they oppose (typically, Masonic ones). The Dossiers accomplish this by “naming” a
succession of masters of the order, simply by dubbing them as such, naming
such famous people as Sir Isaac Newton and Da Vinci, in a line extending to
1099. In so doing, they created the myth of their power, grafting the Priory
onto the centuries-long extant myths that emerged from the dissolution of the
Templars, who were disbanded by Pope Clement V at the Council of Vienne in
France in 1312 (the surviving Templars went into hiding or joined other orders).

Brown takes full advantage of the myths about the not-so-complete
destruction of the Templars and their unprovable, yet tantalizing,
connections with the (doubtfully) real Rosicrucians of the early
17th century and the very real Freemasons whom he indirectly,
but briefly vilifies in Angels & Demons by equating them with
the Illuminati of Bavaria (who, historically, did infiltrate some central European
Masonic lodges for about six years in the late 1780s). The hermetic existence
of Freemasonry in the real world and the fact that the sources of its transcultural
myths and rituals are so lost in the mists of time make it nigh unfathomable
to outsiders. At the same time, its hermetic nature renders it vulnerable to
malicious mining and even occasional unscrupulous opportunism by some of their
own. More puzzling to the newcomer to the world of occult history is that the
lists of Priory members conveniently intersects with some who were Freemasons,
such as Victor Hugo, and some who are often believed to have been, such as Sir
Isaac Newton. In this parasitic way, Plantard and friends were able to create
a credible pedigree. Brown’s literary legerdemain consists in his hanging
his plot on these pegs of Western esoteric traditions little known to most
readers. He arranges these myths and hoaxes like pegs in a line that he pulls
taut, beginning with his particularly bad art criticism, quickly followed up
by fallacious or academically irresponsible interpretations and juxtapositions
of biblical and gnostic texts.

Brown’s next comment on the “Fact” page of The Da Vinci Code
is a blurb about Opus Dei, the organization vilified more than any other – real
of fiction – in the book. As many readers know, this organization does
exist, and Brown’s depiction of the group is certainly cause for genuine
distress. Opus Dei is a very young organization, founded in Spain in 1928 by
a Catholic priest, José María Escrivá. Its membership was
and is chiefly drawn from professionals in all walks of life who seek to live
by the virtues of the primitive Jesuits, and to convert others by example. Due
to Opus Dei’s pro-Franco stance in the 1960s, the organization is often
viewed as having an ultraconservative and reactionary social, political and religious
agenda. But Brown’s sloppiness with other facts, such as the albino hit
man-monk who has good vision, tips off alert and concerned readers that they
should seek out more balanced views of Opus Dei.

The claims about “artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals” being “accurate” should
arouse suspicion. Accurate according to which source? How can artwork or architecture,
per se, be described as accurate? They simply exist. Their meaning depends on
interpretation — and even then, meaning is not synonymous with truth.
To paraphrase Umberto Eco, the real master of fiction dealing with esoteric
realms, anything that can be used to tell the truth can also be used to tell
a lie.

In order to satisfy my own intellectual disquiet regarding Brown’s biggest
challenge to orthodox thinking, I read a scholarly edition of four gnostic gospels
and a treatise on Egyptian gnostic writings by Jean Doresse, who worked with
the original texts in the Egyptian division of the Louvre. Most of these gospels
are disjointed collections of proverbs and vignettes. Doresse’s enumeration
of the narrative and doctrinal content of the Gospel of Philip nowhere includes
any allusion to a literal relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalen, and readers
may be sure that Doresse would not have hesitated to reveal it if it were there.
While scholars debate whether gnosticism arose in the midst of Christianity or
tangential to it, the gnostic writings are not part of the biblical canon because
they were considered heretical or, at best, unreliable by the Christian church.
Even if one were to take the gnostic writings as historically authoritative,
however, I found no evidence of any allusions in them to a literal relationship
between Jesus and Mary Magdalen. From my own reading and Doresse’s descriptions
and summaries of the contents of the ones I did not have access to, it was increasingly
clear that Brown had provided his own context and interpretation for the verse
he lifts from the Gospel of Philip to assert that Jesus and Mary Magdalen were
married. Brown misuses his sources in that he ignores misogynistic statements
attributed to Jesus, he provides contexts that do not exist in the gnostic texts
he cites and, ironically, he interprets the texts literally. Ironically, because
gnostic writings often employed sensual language to refer to mystic union, similar
to that found in the Song of Songs or, in hermetic circles, in alchemical writings.
Literal interpretation of mystic texts from any tradition is simply absurd. But
then, the novel’s plot depends on irresponsible and fraudulent interpretation.

It is unreasonable to hope that myths, good and bad, will not grow
up alongside the truth about any famous person or group, whatever
that truth may be. As to anyone’s claims about the credibility of evidence: questions are not settled
by the mere antiquity of the source or sources. Each bit of textual or other
evidence must be weighed in the context of the whole mosaic of the times in which
they were produced and who produced them. Motivations must also be considered.
Scholars who labor in the fields of biblical archaeology and the interpretive
disciplines of theology, wielding the tools of philology, extract the meaning
from textual artifacts and, God willing, prove their truth – or their
falsehood.

Finally, relying on my professional judgments as a professor of
literature, I have serious objections to The Da Vinci Code as
literature, which are quite distinct from the factual problems
I and others see. The factual errors, misrepresentations and
so on, can be resolved by study. Ironically, the questions about
its artistry will probably determine whether this work will be
a classic or whether it is a flash in the pan that has made Dan
Brown immensely popular.

Months before the questions about this book were raised among members
of SPU’s
extended family, I had been urged by many friends to read it. “It will
blow you away,” they would say, refusing to give away the plot. Last summer,
having two hours to kill one afternoon, I walked into a bookstore and picked
up a copy. The price put me off, but I opened it to get a feel for Brown’s
style.

The first thing that particularly attracted my attention was what
I can only describe as the Nancy Drewlike dialogue between Langdon
and Sophie. Sometimes Langdon waxes into a playboylike smugness
redolent of Pierce Brosnan’s
rendition of James Bond. If Brown had written his plots as more complex narratives
and had been more adept at writing adult dialogues (either from the point of
view of one or various characters instead of his omniscient, third-person narrator),
he would not have been able to hold our interest. More importantly, with the
slower pace needed for the character development characteristic of real novels,
his claims about religious history would likely have been more foregrounded
and hence come under more immediate and intense scrutiny, resulting in fewer
sales.

Next, I randomly opened to the code writing of Da Vinci and said
under my breath, “Here
we go, again…” as I suspected sources of the ilk of the Priory conspiracy
buffs. Noticing that this was supposed to be a clue, I thought of my own discovery
of Da Vinci’s backward writing when I was in fifth grade and had to wonder
why Brown could not have come up with something else. I felt like I had stumbled
onto the literary version of a decoder ring.

At this initial perusal, I also happened upon Brown’s interpretation of
Da Vinci’s painting “The Last Supper.” Brown accurately observed
that it is not a depiction of the institution of the Eucharist. But instead of
using what art historians know and teach, specifically, that the painting represents
the moment after Jesus reveals that one disciple is about to betray him, Langdon
makes one of the most outrageous, and ultimately silly, claims of the book: that
the figure of John the Beloved is really Mary, and not just any Mary, but Mary
Magdalen, and that Jesus is announcing her apostleship. Then he points out that
the letter “M” is discernible around the silhouettes of the figures,
as it would be in any group photo. Having read that absurdity, I put down the
book and browsed other sections of the bookstore.

One requirement for a work of fiction to be called a novel is that
a main character evolve, facing conflicts that require examination
of some of life’s big
questions. By a long stretch, Brown’s stock, two-dimensional character,
Langdon, is a latter-day Sherlock Holmes; but because Brown endows him with
heroic stamina more akin to a comic-book superhero than a middle-aged professor,
I am unable to regard Brown as a latter-day Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Once the controversy about the The Da Vinci Code became too hard
to ignore, I bought it, at discount, and read it (I confess,
I bought, read and enjoyed Angels & Demons,
too). In reading both of these books, I discovered the secret of Brown’s
ability to churn out page-turners. His chapters alternate scenes between groups
of characters, are very brief and always end with some unresolved question or
tense situation. Readers feel compelled to turn the page just to keep the facts
together, even if not driven by some curiosity about what will happen next. Commuters
have short spans of time in which to read. Readers in such a situation, regardless
of their critical skills in others, are less disposed to challenge facts when
to do so would come at the expense of the enjoyment of the fast-paced action
or the need to keep plot details straight. And so it is that Brown’s
plots skip like a stone across the surface of the deep waters of history, the
abyss of esoterica, and issues of faith.

How ought believing, intellectually engaged Christians approach
this book and others like it? First, these works ought to be
recognized as escapist literature and if read, enjoyed for
what they are. On a more positive level, they can facilitate
conversations in which the familiar Wesleyan quadrilateral
of Scripture (canonicity), faith, reason and tradition help
us make more informed decisions about such matters. The Da
Vinci Code and books like it challenge intellectual and spiritual
complacency, encouraging us to get the facts and know them.
They are dangerous only if we remain complacent about the truth.
As a professor of Spanish medieval, Renaissance and baroque
literature (and often of the art of this period), such popular
books offer me negative examples of art criticism and misinterpretations
of Western intellectual history. Much of my field of study
is legitimately illuminated by a profound understanding of
real esoterica, as opposed to the pulp of recent mintage. Discussions
of these subjects, in the context of art, literature and history
often bring to light the conspiracy theories that can appeal
to young people in search of quick, definitive answers. Since
the most frequent danger of conspiracy theories is that they
project evil and blame onto others and exonerate one for his
or her own failings, discussing them may help students develop
a sense of responsibility in these times so bereft of accountability.

From the President
As today’s opinion-shapers declare the Christian message irrelevant, Seattle
Pacific University President Philip Eaton reminds us: “For two billion
people, the resurrection of Jesus Christ changed everything.”

“This Is Our Campaign”
Creativity and commitment are the hallmarks of faculty contributions, including
finding precision science equipment and seeking grants. [Campaign]

Acting on AIDS
A student-led campaign encouraging a Christian response to a world pandemic
had the campus seeing orange. [Campus]

When Disaster Strikes As senior development officer for Northwest Medical Teams,
alumnus Dick Frederick ’63 helps deliver care to those who
need it most. [Alumni]

Looking Ahead
Falcon women keep their sights on a national championship after a perfect season
ends too soon at the Elite Eight. [Athletics]

My Response
Nicaraguan native Maria Antonia Caldera Hunter ’89 tells of an SPU study
tour to her homeland that showed her the presence of Christ in unlikely places.